A Shrewd and Intriguing Individual of Mysterious and Indistinct Gender
by FenrisAD
Summary: This is an Eho Bazaar fanfic, hope you guys like it, and also me practicing writing a genderless character. Feedback is appreciated. I envision this as an one-shot right now, but might change my mind latter.


The Gray Lobo stood before a magnanimous crowd that extended far beyond his eye's reach. The Lobo was a peculiar creature, bandages covered its face and the pitch of his voice shifted constantly, it was mysterious to a point where it was impossible to distinguish what it was, to all others beside itself it was unknown if he was man or women or even if he was human at all. The crowd listened closely as it delivered a powerful speech about victory and conquest, except it was not it who spoke at all. It was a strange feeling, like if it knew every detail of what was happening, but didn't understand it, like if he was seeing life trough someone eyes, except that someone was himself.

Lobo wasn't able to distinguish the words that came out of his mouth; neither could it intervene in any way. It felt like someone was in control of all of its activities, and it felt as bad as you imagine it is. He managed to distinguish that the speech was about victory and conquest by searching a little harder into the depths of his mind, it was just then he began to see things more clearly: the body was the same, the mind was the same, and even the strange absence of the bandages that normally cover Lobo's face was the same, but it was not the Lobo who gave motion to the shell; it was the Other Lobo who did.

It could understand that the Other Lobo was one few (and brief) off-shots of Lobo's existence. Much like in the nightmares it had experience in the last couple of weeks. It wondered for a brief moment if a Nightmare was also what happened right now. It drifted into its thoughts, eventually stumbling upon the consensus that it was not a nightmare, but a glimpse into a future that might end up happening. The idea of having falling into insanity due to the constant nightmares had been tormenting it the last couple of days, and it quickly wondered if he had finally done so. Once again it drifted into its mind, this time travelling far into its archives to reach (yet another) consensus: it had gone insane at some point, but was no longer so.

Had it gone insane before the vision begun, and now that he is watching the vision he is no longer insane? No… No! Our Lobo now understood (with another trip to the archives, of course) that it had seen things wrongly: the Other Lobo had already been insane and returned to sanity, thus, our Lobo had yet to travel into the fields of insanity in a distant future, and yet to return in a more distant future. Lobo's head started to hurt with how confusingly the vision was manifesting its ideas… Our Lobo, I mean.

Once again, his focus turned to the crowd, despite the fact that it was no longer a crowd: it was an entire army, whose lust for war could be felt miles away. "Magnanimous my ass" our Lobo pondered (does it have an ass?), he somehow knew that army was composed of the worst kind of scum one could gather: mercenaries, devils, assassins, criminals and revolutionaries (the kind of people you fear in a daily basis). Now it understood: he was their general, tasked with leading that dangerous group to a most prominent victory against… It didn't manage to perceive what they were supposed to conquer, but it knew it was something huge.

Lobo blinked, and suddenly discovered he could not open his eyes no more. Something went horrible wrong when a giant hole opened beneath its feet, but it failed to fall into it. The world started to become warped, and Lobo felt horrible as its body began to turn into a heinous anamorphic mass, he screamed in pain and threw up repeatedly due to how gross he felt.

It was then catapulted towards infinity. His anamorphic mass was used as a battering ram to breach space and time itself. The mass traveled the whole extension of the 'Neat, it began an unsettling voyage to other worlds and dimensions; there he meet an strange squid-like monster who called himself a name that no human can pronounce, a world where people fought with swords made of pure light, a world were a dystopia society was ruled by corporations and clowns with grenade noses were the people's only line of defense, and a world where farting was then returned to his homeworld; finishing the wild ride with a quick trip to the the surface itself.

How could something like this be possible? Lobo feared for his life, even though it didn't understand how he was fully aware of what had happened during the voyage, as his eyes were still closed during the whole. Normally, If someone who had spent so much time in the 'Neath like Lobo decided to go to the surface, he would suffer a pretty horrible death.

In this case no grizzly death came to our hero, and his body began to reconstruct itself into a human (and masculine) shape. It had become someone else, someone whose species and gender was fully known to all.

He looked across the dusty courtyard. Lobo's head ached and the sun dazzled his eyes. A woman's voice rang in his ears, yelling for help; but he couldn't put a name to her, and he shouldn't be able to: that was not his life. The only things he knew were that he was somewhere in the surface and was located somewhere in time… Somewhere before he had arrived in London. Oddly enough never before it knew that it had been outside London in its bizarre life, but now it embraced the odd reality that it had a life prior to venturing to London. Something told him that the things he saw now had no connection to his life in the surface, it was someone else's life.

His eyes rose, focusing into a strange tree that arose splendidly off the ground, something unimaginable. Well; at least Lobo felt like it should be so for him. It was hard to inspire the unimaginable into someone who lived in London, that place was built around things much stranger and bizarre than a tree with leafs made of pure silver, glinting in the fierce sun.

He noticed a gate that separated him from the world; he tried to move towards it; only to realize he had no control over that body. Hell, what was it trying to do? He had no control of the future-self, how in hell would he be able to control the past-not-self?

From beyond the gate, the thump of hoof-beats, the clamour of warriors, the clouds of dust. Something that Lobo didn't understand – but once again knew the importance – was starting. He snatched up his satchel by his side, and looked for a place to run to. Lobo then had a couple of short visions of horseback warriors, and then noticed those were right outside, shouting in the courtyard.

He found a way into an alcove, where he could hide while he gathered his mind on what was happening. Where they looking for him? He needed to think past the pain in his head. His alcove was not uncomfortable, although he shared it with a number of spiders and one small salamander.

Lobo felt launched back in time again, but this time his form was still of the unknown man.

He now stood in front of a handsome fellow, with a fine moustache; jovial and good-natured, but with steel at its heart. Somehow Lobo knew the man was the Great Khan, although he had no idea of what that meant. Both talked in a beautifully looking saloon, almost royal in nature, something that few will ever see in their life. He and the Khan discussed about scholarship. The Khan was proud to describe his great library to Lobo.

The background shifted from a palace to a village in ashes, fire and battle raged as the Khan turned from a handsome noble to a murderous savage; his was tainted in the blood of many innocent men, women and children alike. In the distance screams of men could be heard as they were killed one by one. The ones that stopped fighting and gave up were forced to watch as their women were abused, their houses raided, and their children butchered by the Khan's army.

Lobo screamed and shook; trying to regain control of its body… To no avail. All he wanted in the world right now was to break free and stop that madness. He could never stand idly as innocent people were butchered by an evil army such as the Khan's. He could not force a single move upon its body. He was then struck by a realization, as the vision became clearer he came to the full realization, the body he habited was not only did not belong to him… His body stood right before him, ferocious and deadly…

It was no the Khan who stood before him, it was the Gray Lobo itself, with his army of scum right behind him, doing whatever they please with the innocent men and women of that village… No, it was not a village.

It was London.


End file.
